50 years ago in Expo history: The ‘pipe-huffing hippie’ who took a stand against the fair turned out to have a much more buttoned-down day job

A “bare-chested pipe-puffing hippie” named Mr. Love Child protested city council member Jack Winston’s stand against the establishment of an Expo ’74 youth park.

“it’s just sour grapes,” Mr. Love Child reportedly said. “That man runs a shoe store and he’s bitter because we don’t wear shoes.”

Mr. Love Child was actually Jack Winston himself, dressed up for a spoof at the Spokane Press Club’s annual Gridiron Night.

Other jokes at the event included an announcement by Expo President King Cole that “Hillyard will be the 27th Foreign Nation to participate in Expo,” and that “streakers will be arrested unless they have some redeeming literary merit – like if she’s returning a book to the library.”

From 100 years ago: A Superior Court judge ordered a recount in the Hillyard annexation vote after a citizen filed a complaint alleging that “the canvassing board failed to count certain questionable ballots” in favor of annexation.

The annexation proposal, which would have made Hillyard a part of Spokane, failed by only five votes.

Also on this day

(From onthisday.com)

1345: The conjunction of Mars, Jupiter and Saturn is thought by scholars at the University of Paris to be the “cause of the plague epidemic” known as the Black Death. The actual cause was the bacterium yersinia pestis spread by fleas, rats and other animals.

1854: Anti-slavery activists within the U.S. Whig Party opposed to the Kansas-Nebraska Act form a new Republican Party; notable politicians who switched allegiance include Abraham Lincoln, Rutherford B. Hayes, Chester A. Arthur and Benjamin Harrison.